


Beat Me Down, Build Me Up

by Romiress



Series: Build Me Up [1]
Category: Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Bad Parent, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, In which Slade Wilson is a better person than Bruce Wayne, Post-RHATO 25, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 03:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romiress/pseuds/Romiress
Summary: Post RHATO 25: Slade finds Red Hood bleeding out in one of his safehouses.





	Beat Me Down, Build Me Up

Slade gets the alert late one evening: someone's broken into one of his safehouses.

It's not the first time it's happened, and it's probably not going to be the last, but every time it  _ does _ happen it pisses him the hell off. It means he has to stop whatever he's doing, drag his ass over to the safehouse, reset all his security, replenish whatever they managed to steal, and then he has to hunt down whoever broke in and kill them.

Even worse: the safehouse is in  _ Gotham, _ which means he has to do it all while dodging bats.

He's on the ground in Gotham less than four hours later. The safehouse isn't blown up (which is nice), but someone's short circuited the biometrics panel to bypass it. The damage is extensive, the work is sloppy, and Slade grumbles to himself about the fact that he's going to have to tear the entire goddamn thing out of the wall. And for what? Everything inside the safehouse is locked down even  _ more. _ If they had to do this much damage to get in, they're not getting anything out of his safehouse.

He realizes he's misjudged the situation the moment he's in the door. He comes in prepared for an ambush, but the moment he's inside all he can smell is the thick coppery tang of blood in the air. There's some on the doorframe inside, like someone bleeding a lot had to lean against it for support.

There's a lot more blood when he ducks through the fake livingroom area into the bedroom. The first aid kit on the desk is torn open, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that whoever broke in was attempting to patch themselves up. There's supplies all over the floor, and the trail leads right to Slade's bed.

Jason Todd is lying in his bed.

He looks like absolute shit—Slade barely recognizes him through the swelling across the left side of his face—and he's definitely not awake as Slade looms over him, waiting for a reaction. He's expecting some kind of snippy remark about his hospitality, but instead he gets absolutely nothing.

Even when he nudges Jason with his knee, still no reaction.

Jason Todd is dead to the world, and with how much blood he's losing, pretty soon he might just be dead. The last thing Slade wants is a dead Robin (even a former one) in one of his safehouses, so he ends up getting to work, pulling out his heavier duty medical supplies. The cache is a bit old and out of date (it's not like he needs it, but sometimes people he's kidnapping do), but it gives him what he needs to check Jason over. His sides all sorts of torn up, and the fact that Jason doesn't wake up even as Slade stitches him closed doesn't exactly say good things. His face is all swollen, but there's not much Slade can do for that, so he instead focuses on Jason's broken right arm, resetting it and binding it to keep it in place. He doesn't have any blood packs, so he has to settle for the artificial stuff.

When he's done, he stares down at the bloody mess on his bed, grumbles to himself, and then gets to work washing Jason off. He's a goddamn mess, caked in dried blood, and it takes almost an hour to get him clean enough.

He leaves Jason leaning against the wall, strips the sheets, decides he's going to need a new mattress, and then puts new sheets on anyway. Only once he's done does he tuck Jason back into bed, still dead to the world.

He spends the rest of the day working on his own stuff in the living room, typing away at his laptop until he finally hears noise in the bedroom.

"Get back in bed," he snaps before he's even through the door, because of  _ course _ Jason's trying to climb out of bed with a broken arm and his side ripped to shit.

Jason stares at him like he's got three heads, and it occurs to Slade that Jason either didn't know whose safehouse he was breaking into, or that he forgot the fact that he broke into his safehouse entirely.

"Back in bed," he says, planting a hand on Jason's chest and pushing him back down. "You're going to rip your stitches and bleed all over again."

Jason splutters something, and it's clear his brain can't decide between  _ what are you doing here _ and  _ let me go, _ so he just ends up saying  _ let me doing here _ like that makes any sort of sense.

Slade gives him a flat look.

"This is non-optional, kid," he says. "You are going to stay in bed until you're well enough to walk out of here on your own."

"Fuck off," Jason finally manages to say. "Who made you king?"

"You did," Slade says, "when you decided to ruin my saturday morning by bleeding all over my safehouse. The last thing I want is daddy bats kicking my door in because I let you bleed out in an alley."

The look on Jason's face is immediately pained. Slade's struck a nerve, even if he doesn't know what it is, and the fact that Jason—always in your face and never the sort of person to back down from a challenge—is  _ refusing _ to meet his eyes sets alarm bells ringing in Slade's head.

"What?" He asks. "What am I missing?" Because he's definitely missing something.

Jason rolls onto his side (at least it's his  _ good _ side) and refuses to speak.

Jason still isn't speaking hours later when Slade feeds him lunch (a thin soup to help him keep it down). He  _ still _ isn't speaking when dinner rolls around and Slade feeds him thai takeout from a place just down the road.

"Alright," Slade says. "Who am I calling? Because as fun as it is playing nurse, I have things to do."

He's expecting Dick's name to come up. They're close. Brothers or something along those lines, and as weird as it is, he and Dick have something of a mutual understanding. Dick wouldn't bat an eye at him dropping an injured Jason off at his place.

"Arsenal," Jason says.

"Green Arrow's kid?" Slade says, and has to dodge a pillow Jason lobs at him.

"He's not his  _ kid,"  _ Jason snaps. "Don't call him that. Just give me my phone."

Jason's phone is shattered into pieces, and when Jason sees it he seems to deflate, his entire body seeming to shrink inward.

"...Can I use your phone?"

Slade gives him one of his burners and wonders just what the hell happened. He'd assumed—because it was a pretty fucking safe assumption—that Jason had gotten caught doing all that stupid vigilante stuff he does. That some criminal had taken out their frustrations on him.

Now he's starting to wonder if there's something else to it.

Jason calls Arsenal anyway, and mid conversation Slade simply reaches over, taking the phone from him (not hard even if Jason  _ wasn't _ injured) and giving Arsenal directions. Not to his safehouse, because this one has value even if the Bats  _ do _ know where it is, but to a nice meeting spot nearby.

"Why  _ exactly _ are you doing this?" Jason asks, gritting his teeth in obvious pain as Slade helps him out of the bed.

"What was my alternative, exactly?" Slade says. "Let you bleed out on my floor and have to hide your fucking body? Think it through, kid."

There's like sixty reasons it's a terrible idea, and Jason just grunts in response.

Arsenal's in civilian clothes, leaned up against a truck when they arrive, and he goes white as a sheet when he spots Slade. He's a pretty distinct guy, so there's no question who he is, and it takes a few seconds for Arsenal to recognize just how hurt Jason is.

"Oh jeez," he says, sliding up to wrap Jason's arm over his shoulders, helping him carry his weight. "I've got you Jay. We'll get you back home, alright?"

He swings his head around to look at Slade, who simply raises an eyebrow, daring him to say... something. Anything. To accuse him of making Jason into the mess he is right then, his arm broken and his body more bruise than flesh.

"Thanks for helping him," Arsenal says instead, catching Slade off guard. "You're not such a bad guy."

"Debatable," Jason mumbles under his breath.

Slade stays in the alley, watching them go. He's got things to do, but a part of him can't help but hope that whoever put Jason through the wringer is going to get what's coming to them.


End file.
